At first hand I have to thank my Beta Reader ... the number of whom is growing very quickly ... and they are all so special to me!!!! So Thanks Ray, who made the big effort to translate my English into real English, and then Elena, who literally forced me to end this, and then Sarah, Helene, LabRat, Wendy, Ann who helped me with a lot of tips, mis-spelling, mistakes, and sometimes helping me to rewrite pieces and stuffs. THANKS GUYS!!!!!

I guess we all wondered what happened Lois in the other universe when she vanished in the Congo. And I guess everybody believe that Lois Lane died in Africa, and that the other Clark is fated to be alone. That's why I wrote this. She is the soulmate of that sad Clark. He needs one!

Ok ... I hope you like it ... and please let me know if you do ... or if you don't ...

This time I stop babbling ... and ... Ok ... the return ... here we go!

Disclaimer 1: I own Nothing… I Used the characters just for fun…

Disclaimer 2: This story has some strong psychological abuses. Nothing verbal, nothing physical. But definitely This Alt Lois hadn't good moment lately. So, you're warned.

Lois' Return

Alt-Congo 1993

"Chief, we caught that journalist as you ordered, what should we do with her? You want me to kill her?"

"No ... she's quite pretty ... She'll be just the thing for my collection ... I think I'll keep her for me!"

The man nodded. "As you wish ... Shall I bring her to your bedroom?"

"No ... it must be her choice!"

The man looked at his boss and then looked into the room with the screaming woman.

"Let me go! You can't keep me here! I want to leave, now!"

"I don't believe she'll accept your offer."

His boss looked at him with a superior expression on his face.

"She'll do it, sooner or later!"

Alt Metropolis 1996

Clark sank down on his couch and sat for a very long time in darkness. It was all so difficult now. He had seen Lois again, seen her happy in the arms of her Clark. And it hurt. He couldn't tell, not even to himself, if what he felt for her was true love. It was a need. The need of a love like that between Lois and her Clark. He needed that kind of love. It was the only thing he really needed. Since his secret had been revealed everyone had started to treat him differently and this had made him feel more alone.

He had also seen his parents. He knew that they weren't in fact his own parents, but they had so much love to give. Clark, the other Clark, would never feel as alone as he did, with the kind of family he had.

And instead, he was sitting there alone. What he wouldn't give to have his soul mate close to him.

Alt-Congo 1996

"Chief, the girl is getting worse and worse!"

"She is going to surrender, she is close to breaking."

"She won't do it ... I'm very sure about that."

"Are you contradicting me? "

"Chief ... I've been watching her for more than three years now ... "

"As have I ... I have the videotapes, remember?"

"Chief ... I've never been a softie ... but you can't continue to treat her this way ... Why don't you just kill her?"

"Maybe we haven't been persuasive enough ... but if you don't want to do this anymore ... I'll find someone else ... "

"NO ... I'm not saying that."

"Then be quiet and open the door!"

The man entered the completely dark room. He was wearing a pair of infrared glasses that allowed him to see without being seen. To touch her without being seen.

"Darling ... you see ... I've come to visit you again ... " The woman didn't move. She sat huddled in a corner of the room. She kept herself immobile, her arms tight around her knees. Her eyes were open but they stared into space. She didn't change her expression when she heard him enter. She remained totally unresponsive.

The man's anger grew. He forced her to get up, pushing her against the wall. "Don't make me angry, Darling ... sooner or later you are going to surrender ... or I'll kill you!" The woman's expression never changed at all.

The man went out, slamming the door behind him. The lights in the little prison were on again. Then he turned toward the two-way mirror that covered most of one wall in the room and stared through it.

With a glassy-eyed look the girl went to the shower, opened it and stood for a long while under its jets of hot water.

"It's as I said ... she is not well!"

"I'll give her two weeks. If she hasn't surrendered during the next two weeks ... I'll kill her." And with that he left.

Two weeks?! He was going to be leaving this afternoon. How much time would he have left to see her? Just a couple of days? How would he make her change her mind? It was impossible. She hadn't changed her mind in three years ... nothing would be able to change her mind in the next two weeks.

Five days later

Luckily the day was almost at an end. He had just finished putting the finishing touches on his article, but it was nothing thrilling. Perry had just left the Planet a few minutes before. Sometimes he became homesick for his old job, his old love, and he stopped by. Now Mr. Olsen was on the phone with someone but this was not very interesting to Clark.

The phone rang and he answered it without thinking.

"Clark Kent"

"You are Superman, aren't you?" The caller didn't wait for him to answer. "You must help her ... he'll kill her in ten days. She'll never surrender!"

"What are you talking about?"

"It's been three years that he has kept her locked up in that cellar. It's as if he has already killed her, but now he wants to do it for real ... and he'll kill me too, for what I'm doing ... " The line was very scratchy and the man spoke with a very strong, very strange accent.

"Just tell me one thing at a time ... Who is in danger? Who wants to kill her?"

"We kidnapped her three years ago ... she was investigating, she was a reporter ... you must save her!" The man gave him detailed instructions for finding the big house in the Congo. Clark's hands trembled as he wrote down the address.

'Don't get too excited, Clark ... it might not be her!' But his heart began racing furiously.

A second after the call ended Clark was flying toward the Congo. He had never flown so fast. He saw the house from afar, it was exactly as it was described to him. He X-rayed it and saw some armed men, but this fact didn't bother him.

There was a room hidden under the house, the windows were bricked up. There really was someone being held in there.

It was a woman. She had brown, very long hair. She was thin and very weak. She was curled up in a corner of the room that was her prison.

He landed near the outer wall of the room where the woman was held. Seconds later the walls collapsed as if they were made of paper.

Clark made a few steps toward the woman before she raised her eyes. She had a lifeless and almost absent look. They stared at each other for a while.

"Lois ... " The woman inclined her head, gazing at him. Then she slowly got up and started to walk. She was weak, she could hardly stand. She made it to the new exit and she stretched her hand toward the night. She looked out. It was dark but the sky was completely full of stars and a full moon lit up the night. In a few seconds Clark was beside her. The armed men that guarded the house were running toward them. Clark heard their steps coming closer and closer. Lois, meanwhile, moved very slowly, just a step at a time, walking past where the wall had been. She did not speak. She raised one arm until her hand covered the moon completely. Then suddenly ... she opened her fingers and let the moonlight fall on her face.

A guard ordered them to stop. Lois was lost in herself, having found her beloved Moon, and took no notice of the guard. Clark disarmed him in less than a second, then he was again next to Lois. He held her and called her name but she failed to move.

"I'm taking you to Metropolis ... you mustn't be scared." He held her in his arms and slowly rose from the ground.

"Stay calm ... we'll be there in a few minutes ... I'm able to go much faster, but I want to be sure that you are OK," he told her in his kindest tone. Lois trembled and Clark didn't know if it was because she was scared or cold.

"It will just be a little while longer ... " Suddenly the light changed and they saw the sun. Instinctively Lois hid her face against Clark's chest, he smiled to himself at that gesture, then slowly she got used to the intensity of the light. Clark heard her breathe deeply and he slowed his flying a little. She was trying to taste her first rays of sunshine in three years.

He felt her rest her head against him again and he looked at her as she was closing her eyes, a few tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Clark took her straight to the hospital. Once there, he immediately called Perry who said that he would be there as soon as possible.

Lois was terribly frightened. Doctors and nurses were in and out of her room every few minutes performing tests and taking samples for others. Clark was near her every minute he could. He realized that she was frightened by physical contact. Every time he brushed her cheek or her hair or the times he held her hand her heart rate rose dramatically, the same thing happened with the doctors and nurses too. The few times she was alone she would crouch, almost hidden, in a corner of the room.

The doctors said that Lois needed rest and rehabilitation. They decided that she should be transferred to a nursing home as soon as her condition would permit it.

Perry arrived in less than an hour. He flung himself into the room and ran to Lois' bedside. Lois' heart started to beat quickly as she was being held in Perry's embrace. But Clark's biggest surprise came when he saw her smile at the nonsense words that Perry, clearly thrilled, kept repeating. She trusted Perry, he was more of a father to her than her real father had been. She wasn't scared of him at all. Clark would have given his own life to be worthy of so much trust and affection. Lois stretched out her hand covering her almost-father's hand.

"Lois, honey ... tell me you're OK!"

"Perry, since I found her she has said nothing, not one word ... " Clark said, clearly broken hearted. He knew he had found the right woman for him, but still, she had never seemed so near and yet so far away. The doctors preferred to have their patient rest, so a few minutes later Lois' visitors were asked to leave.

Clark didn't go far away from the hospital. He sat on the roof of a building across from it, not wanting to leave her alone. The news of her discovery soon spread across the country. Once he saw that she had settled down to sleep Clark went back to the house where she had been held captive to search for clues as to who had held her but he found the secret shelter was now a pile of debris. It had been completely destroyed. Clark was unable to find anything that he could use in his vain search for justice, or for the first time in his life, vengeance.

His arrival had not been unexpected. A hurt and quite shattered man dragged himself toward him. Clark recognized his voice immediately.

"Superman ... I must give you something ... " he pointed Clark toward a building not far from where they were, Clark helped the man over to it. "There were television cameras everywhere. There was no place in that cage where she could not be seen."

"Who was it that kept her prisoner!?"

But the man ignored the question. He pulled out about twenty videotapes and gave them to Clark. "These were the only ones I was able to keep ... My boss wanted all of them for himself, and he had me destroy the less interesting ones. I believe they may be useful to you in helping her." The man was making a great effort to speak now. He had been beaten severely it seemed before Superman arrived - and by experts.

"Thanks," Clark said.

"That girl impressed me ... I never thought ... she never gave in. And that just made him fly off the handle ... That first day he said she was too independent and that he was going to take care of that, but he has been unable to do so all this time. Lois might have died, her investigation was getting too close. Sooner or later she would have found out about him and he could not permit that. But he felt she was too pretty to die, so my bosshad her brought here. He said he was going to make her his lover, perhaps his accomplice, but that surely she was going to be his sooner or later." He was still for quite a while and Clark was unable to think of anything to say. "Around two years ago I asked him why he kept her like this ... I mean I didn't understand why he kept her in that state. I wondered what the difference would be for him if he just raped her. Don't misunderstand me, I'm a killer, not a rapist, I wouldn't have approved of it, but I'd understand it. Instead he didn't ... he said that he wasn't going to do it, not for some moral grounds ... but because if he raped her she'd try to kill him. It had already happened, a woman didn't forget having been raped, NEVER. At the same time she'd have to agree to be with him of her own choice, she wasn't going to have any revenge, she'd be submissive and obedient for the rest of her life, it became a matter of principle. He couldn't admit that he had underestimated someone either. Lois Lane, she was just an interesting challenge for him ... a trophy to add to his already rare collection ... he destroyed many inestimable treasures ... and Lois was part of them."

Clark smiled sadly, "I think so too."

"It's useless for you to wait ... I'm not going to give you the answer you want ... " Clark looked at him in surprise. "I'm not going to tell you who my boss was, I have a code of honor ... I betrayed my chief when I thought it was the right thing to do. He was cheating at a game he created himself ... he didn't give the girl a way to win. I didn't think that was right. In my own way I've always tried to do what was right. Perhaps that seems stupid to you , but it's the way I think."

"You have no idea how much I want to have this man in my hands right now ... but I understand what you are saying ... you saved her life in any case, I'll find another way to expose him."